The artist was born in 1900. When he was born his name was Lin Fengming. He was an innovator as far as painting for mixing eastern and western painting ideas. He worked mainly wit ink and watercolor on paper.

Fengmian was born in Guangdong and participated in a work- study program in China. The artist travelled through out Europe in the 1920 staying in Germany and Paris for long periods of time of time. In 1925 he started teaching art in China. In 1928 he formed his own school for art and was the first principle.

The artist had a large output, but due to unfortunate circumstances many of his earlier works have been lost or destroyed. During the Sino-Japanese war, many works were destroyed by Japanese soldiers. During a cultural revolution in China many works were also destroyed. Lin Fengmian himself ruined many works of art
by soaking the art and trying to flush it down the toilet. He was still sent to prison for a length of four years his ideas and paintings.

He was let out of jail in 1977 and the government assumed he would head for Brazil to live. Instead the artist lived in Hong Kong until he passed away in 1991. During this time in Hong Kong the artist started to recreate some of his many destroyed art works.

This artist was great and an awesome example of how the pen is mightier than the sword. I consider him to be a precursor to modern contemporary artists such as Ai WeiWei. Both stood for their individual thoughts and ideas. Both were part of a minority way of thinking that was despised by the government. Its easy for me to imagine Fengmian under government surveillance, similar to Ai WeiWei. Fengmian probably had a little more difficulty as it was easier to contain bad events since communication wasn’t so easy as it is now in the days of cell phones. Think of all the scenes we have seen from Syria or the middle East, this wouldn’t have been possible when Fengmian was in his prime as a master artist.
When Ai WeiWei was taken by the goverment a huge public outcry was felt from around the world. Weiwei was in custody and always had at least two guards at his sides, even when he slept or went to the bathroom. Weiwei was supposedly not to have any social media contact, but soon after being released after eighty one days in prison, the artist was back writing negative comments about the Chinese government.